An Epidemic of Credulity

Published:First published inPravdaNo. 76 June 21 (8), 1917.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 25,

      pages65-66.Translated:Transcription\Markup:D. WaltersandC. FarrellPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.  

      2000You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

“Comrades,the resistance of the capitalists has apparently
    been broken.”

Wegather this pleasant news from a speech by Minister
      Peshekhonov. It is staggering news! ’The resistance of the
      capitalists has been broken.”

Andsuch ministerial speeches are heard and applauded! What is
      this but an epidemic of credulity?

Onthe one hand, they use "the dictatorship of the proletariat"
      more than anything else to scare themselves and other people. On
      the other hand, what is the difference between the idea of the
      "dictatorship of the proletariat" and breaking the resistance of
      the capitalists? None whatsoever. The dictatorship of the
      proletariat is a scientific term indicating the class which
      plays the leading role in it and the special form of state power
      called dictatorship, i.e., power based not on law or elections,
      but directly on the armed force of a particular section of the
      population.

Whatis the purpose and significance of the dictatorship of the
      proletariat? To break the resistance of the capitalists! And if
      "the resistance of the capitalists has apparently been broken"
      in Russia, it is as much as saying "the dictatorship of the
      proletariat has apparently been realised" here.

The“only” trouble is that this is no more than a ministerial
      phrase. Something like Skobelev’s brave exclamation: "I shall
      take 100 per cent
      profit!”[1]It is one of the gems of the
      “revolutionary-democratic” eloquence that is now overwhelming
      Russia, intoxicating the petty bourgeoisie, befogging and
      corrupting the people, and spreading by the handful the germs of
      an epidemic of credulity.

Ascene in a certain French comedy—the French seem to
      excel at the game of socialist ministries—has a
      gramophone record that repeats, before audiences of voters in
      every part of France, a speech full of promises by a “socialist”
      Minister. We think Citizen Peshekhonov should pass on his
      historic phrase, "Comrades, the resistance of the capitalists
      has apparently been broken", to a record company. It would be
      very convenient and useful (for the capitalists) to spread this
      phrase throughout the world, in every language. Here we have, it
      would say, the splendid achievements of the Russian experiment
      in having a bourgeois and socialist coalition Ministry.

Still,it would be a good idea if Minister Peshekhonov, whom
      both the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries (who in
      1906 dissociated themselves from him in their press, regarding
      him as a petty bourgeois who had moved too far to the right)
      call a socialistnow that he has entered the Ministry
      together with Tsereteli and Chernov,answered the following
      simple and modest question:

Isn’tit too much for us to try to break the resistance of the
      capitalists? Shouldn’t we rather try to expose before the labour
      unions and all the major parties the fantastic profits made by
      the capitalists? Shouldn’t we try to abolish commercial secrecy?

Isn’tit too much for us to speak of the “dictatorship of the
      proletariat” (“breaking the resistance of the capitalists")?
      Shouldn’t we rather try toexpose embezzlement and
      misappropriation?

Ifthe price of coal supplies has beenraisedby the
      revolutionary government, as reported by theministerial“Rabochaya Gazeta”, doesn’t it look like plunder of the
      state? Hadn’t we better publish, at least once a week, the
      "letters of guarantee" of the banks, and other documents
      relating to war contracts and to the prices paid under those
      contracts, rather than make speeches about "the resistance of
      the capitalists having been broken"?

[1]Referenceis to the speech which the Menshevik Skobelev, Labour
Minister of the Provisional Government, made at the meeting of
the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies on May 13
(26), 1917, saying that taxation of the propertied classes should
be increased “to 100 per cent of their profits”.